14 ms·

An app called Libby and the big business of library e-books

186 points by samizdis 5y ago

DEADMEAT 5y ago
The user experience with Libby is so much better than any other audiobook service I have tried. The app is nice looking and responsive, but also minimal. Bonus points because using their website provides the exact same UI and UX as the app.
- resoluteteeth 5y ago
  Huh, I didn't even realize there was a web version of Libby. I've always just used the normal overdrive website. The UI is good in some ways but filtering/sorting are extremely clumsy in my opinion. It works perfectly as a reader/player once you have books/audiobooks checked out though.
- danielskogly 5y ago
  I fully agree! The libraries of Oslo use Libby for digital non-Norwegian audiobooks, e-books and comics, and the user experience is light years ahead of the one they use for Norwegian content. I initially didn’t know about the web interface, and was pleasantly surprised to find it has feature parity with the app.
  - canuckintime 5y ago
    > I initially didn’t know about the web interface, it has feature parity with the app. The native Libby apps have downloads/offline access and you can dismiss all the ux/window chrome while reading. The web interface doesn’t offer those features. The web interface is a nice-to-have backup but Libby has discontinued development on their Windows app and keeps redirecting to the web interface which isn’t a suitable full substitute. There are great Windows tablet hardware that paired well with Libby and no other platform quite matches it for comics
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      If you install the Libby webapp (Edge or Chrome), it works just like a normal program, including showing up in the list of installed programs (start menu). No offline support, although there's no reason Libby couldn't add it using a service worker.
- iab 5y ago
  Oh my gosh - the difference between Libby and the previous overdrive dreck is transformational. So slick across different platforms.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Really? Their icons and proprietary design have confused me again and again. For one, they have a library card icon that looks like a battery charging. When the app shows you a checked-out book, there is a checkmark on top of the battery icon. :-) The audiobook listening tools aren't bad though. Personally I prefer the other app our library offers, but it's nice to have a choice of different collections.
GGfpc 5y ago
Libby is really good. Unfortunately the library I was using (Philadelphia) stopped renovating cards for non-residents so I had to go back to piracy
- psychometry 5y ago
  Brooklyn Library has the largest e-book selection I've come across and you can join for $50/year if you don't live in that area. It's a really great value considering the selection and usually decent availability.
  - GGfpc 5y ago
    They don't allow non US residents anymore, at least they didn't when I last checked
    - sosuke 5y ago
      Is it something I can share? I mean I live in a city where I've got access that I don't already use. Shoot me an email if you're interested.
- xhkkffbf 5y ago
  Have you considered just buying a copy? With your own money and supporting the author(s)?
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    Idk about the GP, but I don't want to buy a hundred books a year (at list price) that I only read once or twice.
- fullstop 5y ago
  The only books that I've "pirated" are ones where I own the physical copy and want to read it on a kindle later on.
nautilius 5y ago
Libby as a library app is a PITA. The latest update made it somewhat better, but the UI is still horrible. E.g., it has 5 menu buttons at the bottom that you can use to navigate between different parts of the app, _unless_ you press the center one, then the menu vanishes and you have to know that now you have to somehow swipe left, which will dump you in different menu point. You leave book info boxes by swiping down. My biggest peeve is that I cannot simply look for a book across the different libraries I have access to. I have to select each one individually and repeat the search several times to find out that the book I am looking for is not available. Finally, I wish there was a simple list where I can store books I am interested in without committing to it. The tag system can be used that way but is unpleasantly wonky. Why not make that a menu button rather than the 'timeline', which gives me an overview of the books I signed up for, loaned, and return dates for, I assume, the past 100 years. Why would I need that information as a top level button?
- tfandango 5y ago
  This sums up exactly my experience as well. Our library used to use Overdrive but switched to Libby (Or maybe Overdrive became Libby?). I can see why, it's nice and fancy looking, but it seems like I can't find my holds every single time for some reason. I constantly open the worthless chat pane.
  - roland35 5y ago
    I believe you can use either. I recently downloaded Libby but I still see my holds in overdrive too.
    - fny 5y ago
      It's the same company. Libby is a rebranded Overdrive.
  - dmhmr 5y ago
    Libby and Overdrive are the same thing with different skins. Neither app is good but Overdrive is simpler (IMO) for reserving books and downloading them, so I stuck with Overdrive.
peter_l_downs 5y ago
Libby is OK, but the best experience for ebooks is a kindle or other e-reader, calibre, and libgen. Extremely simple and exactly as free.
- tfandango 5y ago
  I use Libby to search/checkout the book from my library and it has a "deliver to kindle" option, where I actually read it. If I checkout an audiobook, I use Libby to listen to it.
- 1-more 5y ago
  you can send a book to kindle from it
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    Only in America. Nowhere else supports Overdrive and Kindle.
    - 1-more 5y ago
      oh man really? Wack!
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      Newer Kobo devices support Libby/Overdrive, since Rakuten owns both companies. My Kobo is from 2014, so doesn't have that feature.
      - salamandersauce 5y ago
        Rakuten has since sold Overdrive but yeah they do have that feature.
gordon_freeman 5y ago
Libby has made it so easy for me to read and listen to books and audiobooks that I'm now able to read 5-7 books a month. The UI is just so great and even discovery of books on the Library page in the app is so nicely done with curated lists etc. One tip if you are a resident of California, a lot of libraries allow you to get a Library card such as LA, San Francisco libraries etc. And Libby allows you to add multiple library cards to the app and it also has this nice feature to search a book or audiobook in one library and then see if it's available at other libraries that you have added. This way I could mostly find a book that I'd like to read rather than waiting for it to be available.
- lyaa 5y ago
  Libby also works with many other libraries around the world and a bunch of them allow signing up for an account online. For example, Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism has a nice collection and they only require an Emirates ID which is not too hard to get for visitors. The same is true for other public libraries in the UK. It's probably a good idea to sign up for library memberships wherever you travel!
  - patall 5y ago
    You don't need any ID or registration for the one in Berlin (voebb.de). Just pay 10€ (not sure if international credit cards are accepted) and you are good to go for a year. Even had a 3 months trial without anything recently. Has a limited English section though.
  - math-dev 5y ago
    Perhaps you are thinking of something else, but Emirates Id requires a resident visa, so its definitely not something for tourists!
    - lyaa 5y ago
      Yes you're right, getting the Emirates ID depends on the visa type. But, there are lots of expatriates and people visiting for work or school who can get it/already have it. You can also almost always sign up using a passport in person and sometimes online too.
karaterobot 5y ago
> “The point of a library is to preserve, and in order to preserve, a library must own,” Bustillos wrote. When I asked Potash about libraries and their growing digital budgets, he argued that “digital will always be better value,” but he acknowledged that, if current trends continue, “Yes, there is a challenge.” I'm of two minds about this, because on one hand seeing public libraries give up control and move toward a subscribed model feels wrong, shortsighted, lazy, and a bunch of other bad things. But on the other hand the primary purpose of a public library is not to preserve materials, it's to provide access to them. These electronic subscription services sure are a handy way to provide access to the most requested materials, so in the short term they're a great option. But they're a deal with the devil. It's not hard to predict the future here: libraries will become more and more dependent on the subscriptions, which will go up and up in price. Eventually the public library system becomes an inefficient way to redistribute taxes to publishers and distributors. That's different from today, when, due to the special status libraries have with respect to physical media, they're actually pretty inefficient from the publisher's perspective, but great from the reader's. The "challenge" will be to get those same protections in place for digital resources before it's too late.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  Yes, strictly speaking, an archive or a research library is more likely to be long-term storage than a public library (of course, the division is not clear-cut--and some public libraries have substantial archival research holdings). It's pretty routine for libraries to get rid of materials that aren't being used by anybody anymore. But it does take control over the process, the choice of what to keep and what to give up, away from the libraries to some extent.
- sharkjacobs 5y ago
  > the primary purpose of a public library is not to preserve materials, it's to provide access to them I worked in public libraries for years and almost nobody understands or believes how true this is. The main metric that libraries (the ones that I worked in) are assessed by, by the city council members who determine their funding, is "circulation" which is how many materials are loaned out to the public. We have fixed finite stack space and we get rid of as many books as we acquire each year. As a result, its in the libraries interest to buy way too many copies of all the latest best sellers and popular new releases, so that there will be plenty of copies available to borrowers right while the interest in them is high. Almost all of those will be weeded out less than a year later when demand drops off. The circulation numbers are so skewed that maintaining a comprehensive back catalogue is a sort of vanity project, not an imperative.
ryandvm 5y ago
Libby and the bizarre false scarcity model of e-book sharing is the kind of weird crap you end up when you try taking existing laws and paradigms and applying them to the digital landscape. There is absolutely no reason that a kid should have to wait in a queue to borrow an e-book because the 3 "copies" they have are already in use. If it's about making sure authors are compensated appropriately, then we need to restructure licensing fees so that libraries are paying reasonable per-use licensing fees. But to pretend that there are only a few copies of this book we can borrow is asinine.
- selykg 5y ago
  I think there's a bigger issue here. Currently the library buy's x copies of an ebook, which they can then distribute out to members. This is the model you're saying is bad. But the benefit here is that the expense of the book is predetermined and controllable. If you were to switch to a model where they're pay per use, fundamentally the amount is lower initially. But what happens when a book is incredibly popular and there aren't any limits on who can read that book. Now the library could be on the hook for a large bill that never would've happened had they had more control over the book. Sure, they could set a limit per book on the per use rules, but say they hit that limit in 6 months out of the year, now the book is just unavailable for the remaining 6 months? I feel like per use complicates things. I hate the current model, too. But I don't think all libraries are super well funded.
  - pavel_lishin 5y ago
    I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that e-books should be "pay per use" when borrowed at the library, any more than you'd institute a "pay per use" model with regular books, DVDs, etc.
    - nkurz 5y ago
      I don't know if it disproves your "right mind" argument, but here's Overdrive's CEO explaining the advantages of their new "Cost per Circ" model whereby libraries pay a smaller cost for each checkout rather than purchasing items in advance: https://overdrivesteve.com/pursuing-the-holy-grail-of-library-ebook-models/ https://overdrivesteve.com/pursuing-the-holy-grail-of-librar...
OneEyedRobot 5y ago
What exactly is the point of a library in this case? Why doesn't this Overdrive company simply have a direct-to-consumer site with some kind of payment scheme? One thing that's going to have to change is the cost of ebooks. Amazon pricing is insane and I can't say that artificially scarce check-outs is a more logical solution. My main bet is that the IP enforcement apparatus gets stronger and stronger. Now is the time to grab everything you can from whatever source. youtube-dl, libgen, sci-hub, the-eye, even the currently legal things like gutenberg and archive.org...I'm working to go essentially offline on media sources.
- SamuelAdams 5y ago
  Anyone know of any way to download regular backups of books on LibGen?
  - corebuffer 5y ago
    I don't know if I understood your question fully, but this is a guide on how to backup libgen: https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/comments/6rr71h/for_those_who_want_to_backup_libgen_just_in_case/ https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/comments/6rr71h/for_those_wh... You can adapt it to run partially only for the things you want, if that is the case. Hope it helps
- TuringNYC 5y ago
  >> What exactly is the point of a library in this case? Why doesn't this Overdrive company simply have a direct-to-consumer site with some kind of payment scheme? The direct to consumer model already exists. Amazon Kindle provides this very well on a per book level via Kindle [a la carte] (and also for large groups of books via Kindle Unlimited.) There are also numerous site-licensed services which give total access to books for a time period for pay -- I used it in grad school. I also subscribe to OReilly Safari and love it. The OverDrive/Libby model exists because it is free to the end user -- the public library is verifying you are a local resident and then using local tax dollars to fund the free service to residents.
  - 5y ago
bjornlouser 5y ago
"To illustrate the economics of e-book lending, the N.Y.P.L. sent me its January, 2021, figures for “A Promised Land,” the memoir by Barack Obama that had been published a few months earlier by Penguin Random House. At that point, the library system had purchased three hundred and ten perpetual audiobook licenses at ninety-five dollars each, for a total of $29,450 ..." Amazon lists the audiobook at $40, Barnes&Noble sells an audio cd for $60. Paying a premium of over $40 dollars per license for distribution to end users seems crazy...
- andylynch 5y ago
  The price differentiation is because it's for distribution. If you think this is crazy (and I don't necessarily disagree) have a look at how stock exchanges' data licensing works.
ketcomp 5y ago
I just wrote a thread about why I love Libby. https://twitter.com/ketcomp/status/1431401637738917898 https://twitter.com/ketcomp/status/1431401637738917898 1. Low-effort setup for something that will be sparingly used 2. One design for libraries (at least across United States, Canada) - build once, sell forever 3. Skip-the-line loans & nudges as examples of leveraging technology to vastly improve UX. Someone pointed out the redesign and I think that actually has improved - you can also optionally turn on labels for those buttons on the bottom making it even less confusing. It admittedly was pretty confusing pre-redesign.
silicon2401 5y ago
Important tip for any libby/kindle readers: you can set up Libby to send ebooks to your kindle and read there. Libby is an amazing service and made it fun and easy for me to get back into reading with a kindle because I didn't have to drive to the library for checkout or returns, carry a stack of books around, be super picky with what I read I now just get ebooks on the high seas as Libby didn't have a lot of books I wanted to read, but if you care about doing things the approved way (so to speak) then Libby is definitely the way to go
- charles_f 5y ago
  Depends on your library though, some have it deactivated. Books I borrow from my work's library can be sent, books I borrow from my local library I can't
  - samfromnz 5y ago
    It appears to be U.S-only too: https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/categories/kindle-books.htm?tocpath=Home%7CKindle%20Books%20(U.S.%20only)%7C_____0 https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/categories/kindle-books.htm?... Hopefully this changes in future, as I know many people find reading on a Kindle far more pleasant than a phone/tablet.
    - pkd 5y ago
      In Canada, Overdrive integrates with Kobo e-readers instead.
      - charles_f 5y ago
        Oh nice, good thing my kindle is reaching its end of life then
AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
Libby's usefulness skyrocketed during COVID times, when my library started adding the ability to check out digital magazines as well. Before quarantine, I used to go either to the library or to the Barnes and Noble and pull a couple magazines off the rack to thumb through while having some coffee. Most of those I can just read on my tablet now. You can even tag magazines with a "Notify Me" tag so that you'll get informed when the new monthly of the periodical is available.
- gordon_freeman 5y ago
  Yes the magazine feature "Notify me" is awesome as I can get reminders when new issues of my The Economist, New Yorker and Nat Geo magazines are available to borrow. I found that most of these magazines have unlimited availability so no waiting in line to borrow stuff there. This finally convinced me to not renew my Apple News+ subscription. Another tip: Some libraries such as LA and Berkeley even have NYTimes pass that you can use to read NYT online for a few days. Once the pass expires, you can just use same link to get another pass (usually the pass lasts for 24 to 72 hours).
fassssst 5y ago
I started using Libby a month ago and have probably read ten books since then. It’s awesome how well integrated it is with Kindle. Having multiple books checked out at once combined with the three week return time is very motivating for me to read instead of just scroll away hours on my phone. It’s addicting.
- charles_f 5y ago
  Integration with Kindle seems to be an option though. In BC libraries (out of Vancouver Public Library, which is its own overdrive subscription), it is disabled, which makes it much less attractive
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    It's only a US thing. Not a per library thing. Kobo has integration with Overdrive/Libby in a number of countries including Canada and you can even check out a book directly on he device. Android eReader are also a thing. I use a couple Boox devices and just run Libby directly on them.
charles_f 5y ago
> During the past decade, publishers and booksellers have consolidated at a rapid pace > At the beginning, we were really trying to replicate what happens on the print-book side > In 2011, HarperCollins introduced a new lending model that was capped at twenty-six checkouts, after which a library would need to purchase the book again. Publishers soon introduced other variations, from two-year licenses to copies that multiple readers could use at one time, which boosted their revenue [...] Sums it up.
jrm4 5y ago
My lord, this is all stupid as hell. Here we are, sitting in a world where every human being could possess every book they could ever want to read, forever, in a $30 device. And instead, here we are fully nodding our heads in agreement with this completely nonsensical and artificial "borrowing" metaphor. It's utterly ridiculous. Before anyone goes off on how will writers get paid, please have some imagination. I get books from the library and buy them when they're good. We also have Netflix etc etc. There has got to be a better way.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  Agree completely; we are perpetuating a system where rent collection is the norm, where IP "piracy" is fabricated and conflated, and novel creation is disincented. Would love to see how many sharky middlemen are taking their cut from this type of Overdrive system. Bet it is full of exploitation, and the authors are seeing very little from the wealth transfer anyways.
- josho 5y ago
  Our economic system is based on how to distribute scarce resources. We are applying this way of thinking to non-scarce resources. The consequence is previously unimaginable scale and for the owners/gatekeepers of these resources unimaginable wealth. You are right, we absolutely have to figure out a better way.
  - space_fountain 5y ago
    IP has never been a scare resource in one way of thinking (it's always been way cheaper to copy than pay the right holder), but we recognize that we need to incentive the creation of new IP
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- boplicity 5y ago
WalterBright 5y ago
Copyright on books should expire after 20 years. And frankly, are any authors really making useful amounts of money off of books they wrote 20 years ago?
- nfriedly 5y ago
  Aren't the majority of book copyrights owned by publishers? All the same, I'd expect the answer to your question is "no". I think authors usually make most of their income from the advance before the book is even written. I'm sure they make some income from royalties, for at least some books, but it probably does drop off by the 20 year mark for most books.
  - dangoor 5y ago
    Generally, the copyright is owned by the author but the contract with the publisher gives them so many exclusive rights that they effectively own the work.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Another solution is to simply require registration. Or a renewal after 20 years. I.e. the copyright holder has to proactively do something to extend it.
- TylerE 5y ago
  > are any authors really making useful amounts of money off of books they wrote 20 years ago? Yes? Game Of Thrones is 25 years old.
  - CubsFan1060 5y ago
    Foundation. Wheel of time. Lord of the rings. Marvel movies. James Bond. You’re right, lots of other media that drives book sales. 7 habits, win friends and influence people. There’s a decent amount of examples.
nfriedly 5y ago
I feel like misaligned incentives are the real problem here - what if libraries banded together and paid authors directly for books? Or maybe we need a publisher more like PBS or BBC with more of a public interest perspective?
sayhar 5y ago
I'm just here as a fan of Open Library[1]. More people should know about it. [1] https://openlibrary.org/ https://openlibrary.org/
dredmorbius 5y ago
One of the arguments advanced in favour of copyright-based compensation is that: 1. Authors must be paid. (Agreed.) 2. That payment must be based on the quantity of work produced and sold. (Disagreed.) Wage income ultimately provides for both 1) the living costs of workers and their families as well as 2) opportunity risks and costs of production. (Adam Smith's 240+ year old five-factor analysis of components of wage prices remains excellent, cogent, and relevant: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_10 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_...) Under FDR's New Deal, the Federal Writers Project directly hired and supported numerous American writers, many of whom went on to become classics of the country's literary canon, among them Zora Neale Hurston, Kenneth Rexroth and John Cheever, Saul Bellow, Studs Terkel, Nelson Algren and Richard Wright. Contrast with Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens, who found himself blacklisted and unemployable in San Francisco, with a nickel and a revolver to his name. The nickel for if he was unable to come up with money, the revolver for when he had to spend the nickel. Even after achieving literary success, Clemens struggled with money troubles for his entire life, succeeding largely on the support of his father-in-law. An LA Times article on the FWP: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-05-06/post-coronavirus-federal-writers-project https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-...
mark_l_watson 5y ago
Libby is great - lots of audiobooks and ebooks from my local library. The UE may not be as polished as Audible and Kindle, but still good at what is needed to find books, check them out, and consume them.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/Ha3VQ https://archive.is/Ha3VQ
throwaway088 5y ago
Are there any opensource apps that I can connect to San Jose public library? I have some features in mind, like sending a notification asking me to read a certain page at certain time of the day. When I click the link, it should take me to the next open page. Surprisingly no such apps exist so far
teeray 5y ago
I know it’s a silly artificial thing, but I like the time limits on borrowing. It becomes a commitment and the deadline helps me read tons of books in a year.
smoldesu 5y ago
This is the big issue with SaaS like this, particularly when doing business B2C. Whenever you're providing marginal utility at markup, there will always be a degree of 'bullshit factor' determining how pointless your provision is. If you provide a good service, that factor will be inconsequential, but in the business of e-books it's the elephant in the room. Copying is practically free these days, we should be using that to empower people instead of using it for debilitating them.
ssmmww 5y ago
Possibly a dumb question, but...is there any good economic (vs legal, cultural, etc) reason why a Spotify-style "streaming service" for books wouldn't work? That is, you pay an affordable monthly subscription fee in exchange for completely unfettered access to almost every published book, and authors are compensated per book/page/line read, or something like that.
dhosek 5y ago
I've stashed the article to read later, so maybe they discuss this (but I've seen no indication from the comments). There are two¹ different models for ebook lending at libraries. With Libby/MediaOnDemand, the library purchases an ebook which will have different limitations based on the publisher. For some it's a fixed time frame, for some a fixed number of checkouts, for some it's unlimited. This is meant to be somewhat equivalent to the purchasing process for books and other physical media where it's expected that the book will have a fixed lifetime after which it is no longer lendable.² The price paid, again depends on the publisher, but is generally more than the consumer price for the book.³ The other model is employed by Hoopla. With their catalog, everything is available for unlimited lending with no waiting (although patrons are usually limited to a fixed number of borrows per month). In this instance, the library pays a fee for each borrow, usually around a dollar, but it can vary depending on the media type and publisher. Ooh, I just remembered a third model, although I don't know if any of the library ebook services employ it. Kanopy, which offers streaming video services for libraries works on a system where when a patron decides to watch something, if someone else at the library has already watched it, it's free, if they haven't then the library is charged for a full-price purchase of the media (I read somewhere that this is in the $80–100 range). The big drawbacks here are that (a) the cost will be unpredictable and (2) the library will feel tied to the service thanks to sunk costs. We're still in the early days of figuring out how to make digital media work and balance the needs of libraries and publishers. I like the convenience of being able to borrow anything without waiting with Hoopla although their ereader kind of sucks, and because of the economics, if my library has a book in both Libby and Hoopla, I usually prefer to do the Libby borrow since that money's already spent (plus their reader is better), but it's enough of a toss-up that if the Libby copy is checked out, I'll go with the Hoopla one. ——— 1. At least two. But these are the ones I'm most familiar with. 2. If you ever visit the picture book section of your local public library you will see this limited lifetime exhibited in dramatic fashion. 3. For legal reasons, your library does not purchase it's paper books, DVDs, CDs, etc. at the corner bookstore or Amazon, but through special purchasing agreements that, again, depending on the publisher, will result in the publisher being paid more than they might otherwise get. My first experience of this was when I was publishing a magazine. Library subscriptions almost always came through a service which paid me the full annual subscription price, and then turned around and charged an additional fee to the library. I believe that something similar happens with books where the library pays the service cover price plus X and the publisher receives the full cover price, but I'm willing to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable than me spouting off in a footnote.
mcguire 5y ago
Libby and digital libraries are great, when they have what you want to read. Terrence Wise, Medieval Warfare (1973)? Don't be silly. (Picked it up at a used book store, weirdly.) John Guilmartin, Gunpowder & Galleys: Changing Technology & Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the 16th Century (2003)? (Managed to order it for a reasonable price from Amazon UK.) Nope. Max Hastings, Operation Pedestal (2020)? None of the library systems I have access to have it. (Audible. Really good, so far.) All of the recent, popular fiction? Sure, although you may have to wait several months to get it. I get that the library systems are limited by their budgets and have to prioritize what the majority of their patrons want. But back in the depths of last year, everyone was saying, "You can get all the books you want digitally!" No, no you can't.
orsenthil 5y ago
I was interested in knowing how much commission does libby take for the service it offers? The article doesn't give the details on "big business" that I was looking for. The only related information was - "The details of the sale were not made public, but Rakuten reported a profit of “about $365.6 million.”" But Rakuten is a big company with multiple products. And 365 Million is "Not Big Profit" - for the service lending Millions of ebooks to millions of customers for over a year. I was curious to know, how much libraries pay per ebook. This might have been set prior to libby /overdrive becoming popular. How much commission does libby take for the service it offers? I am also assuming that most of the US libraries are funded by state tax dollars, through which they buy books, pay their staff and now pay libby.

186 points by samizdis 5y ago

The user experience with Libby is so much better than any other audiobook service I have tried. The app is nice looking and responsive, but also minimal. Bonus points because using their website provides the exact same UI and UX as the app.

resoluteteeth 5y ago
Huh, I didn't even realize there was a web version of Libby. I've always just used the normal overdrive website. The UI is good in some ways but filtering/sorting are extremely clumsy in my opinion. It works perfectly as a reader/player once you have books/audiobooks checked out though.
danielskogly 5y ago
I fully agree! The libraries of Oslo use Libby for digital non-Norwegian audiobooks, e-books and comics, and the user experience is light years ahead of the one they use for Norwegian content. I initially didn’t know about the web interface, and was pleasantly surprised to find it has feature parity with the app.
- canuckintime 5y ago
  > I initially didn’t know about the web interface, it has feature parity with the app. The native Libby apps have downloads/offline access and you can dismiss all the ux/window chrome while reading. The web interface doesn’t offer those features. The web interface is a nice-to-have backup but Libby has discontinued development on their Windows app and keeps redirecting to the web interface which isn’t a suitable full substitute. There are great Windows tablet hardware that paired well with Libby and no other platform quite matches it for comics
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    If you install the Libby webapp (Edge or Chrome), it works just like a normal program, including showing up in the list of installed programs (start menu). No offline support, although there's no reason Libby couldn't add it using a service worker.
iab 5y ago
Oh my gosh - the difference between Libby and the previous overdrive dreck is transformational. So slick across different platforms.
themodelplumber 5y ago
Really? Their icons and proprietary design have confused me again and again. For one, they have a library card icon that looks like a battery charging. When the app shows you a checked-out book, there is a checkmark on top of the battery icon. :-) The audiobook listening tools aren't bad though. Personally I prefer the other app our library offers, but it's nice to have a choice of different collections.

GGfpc 5y ago

Libby is really good. Unfortunately the library I was using (Philadelphia) stopped renovating cards for non-residents so I had to go back to piracy

psychometry 5y ago
Brooklyn Library has the largest e-book selection I've come across and you can join for $50/year if you don't live in that area. It's a really great value considering the selection and usually decent availability.
- GGfpc 5y ago
  They don't allow non US residents anymore, at least they didn't when I last checked
  - sosuke 5y ago
    Is it something I can share? I mean I live in a city where I've got access that I don't already use. Shoot me an email if you're interested.
xhkkffbf 5y ago
Have you considered just buying a copy? With your own money and supporting the author(s)?
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  Idk about the GP, but I don't want to buy a hundred books a year (at list price) that I only read once or twice.
fullstop 5y ago
The only books that I've "pirated" are ones where I own the physical copy and want to read it on a kindle later on.

nautilius 5y ago

Libby as a library app is a PITA. The latest update made it somewhat better, but the UI is still horrible. E.g., it has 5 menu buttons at the bottom that you can use to navigate between different parts of the app, _unless_ you press the center one, then the menu vanishes and you have to know that now you have to somehow swipe left, which will dump you in different menu point. You leave book info boxes by swiping down. My biggest peeve is that I cannot simply look for a book across the different libraries I have access to. I have to select each one individually and repeat the search several times to find out that the book I am looking for is not available. Finally, I wish there was a simple list where I can store books I am interested in without committing to it. The tag system can be used that way but is unpleasantly wonky. Why not make that a menu button rather than the 'timeline', which gives me an overview of the books I signed up for, loaned, and return dates for, I assume, the past 100 years. Why would I need that information as a top level button?

tfandango 5y ago
This sums up exactly my experience as well. Our library used to use Overdrive but switched to Libby (Or maybe Overdrive became Libby?). I can see why, it's nice and fancy looking, but it seems like I can't find my holds every single time for some reason. I constantly open the worthless chat pane.
- roland35 5y ago
  I believe you can use either. I recently downloaded Libby but I still see my holds in overdrive too.
  - fny 5y ago
    It's the same company. Libby is a rebranded Overdrive.
- dmhmr 5y ago
  Libby and Overdrive are the same thing with different skins. Neither app is good but Overdrive is simpler (IMO) for reserving books and downloading them, so I stuck with Overdrive.

peter_l_downs 5y ago

Libby is OK, but the best experience for ebooks is a kindle or other e-reader, calibre, and libgen. Extremely simple and exactly as free.

tfandango 5y ago
I use Libby to search/checkout the book from my library and it has a "deliver to kindle" option, where I actually read it. If I checkout an audiobook, I use Libby to listen to it.
1-more 5y ago
you can send a book to kindle from it
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Only in America. Nowhere else supports Overdrive and Kindle.
  - 1-more 5y ago
    oh man really? Wack!
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Newer Kobo devices support Libby/Overdrive, since Rakuten owns both companies. My Kobo is from 2014, so doesn't have that feature.
    - salamandersauce 5y ago
      Rakuten has since sold Overdrive but yeah they do have that feature.

gordon_freeman 5y ago

Libby has made it so easy for me to read and listen to books and audiobooks that I'm now able to read 5-7 books a month. The UI is just so great and even discovery of books on the Library page in the app is so nicely done with curated lists etc. One tip if you are a resident of California, a lot of libraries allow you to get a Library card such as LA, San Francisco libraries etc. And Libby allows you to add multiple library cards to the app and it also has this nice feature to search a book or audiobook in one library and then see if it's available at other libraries that you have added. This way I could mostly find a book that I'd like to read rather than waiting for it to be available.

lyaa 5y ago
Libby also works with many other libraries around the world and a bunch of them allow signing up for an account online. For example, Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism has a nice collection and they only require an Emirates ID which is not too hard to get for visitors. The same is true for other public libraries in the UK. It's probably a good idea to sign up for library memberships wherever you travel!
- patall 5y ago
  You don't need any ID or registration for the one in Berlin (voebb.de). Just pay 10€ (not sure if international credit cards are accepted) and you are good to go for a year. Even had a 3 months trial without anything recently. Has a limited English section though.
- math-dev 5y ago
  Perhaps you are thinking of something else, but Emirates Id requires a resident visa, so its definitely not something for tourists!
  - lyaa 5y ago
    Yes you're right, getting the Emirates ID depends on the visa type. But, there are lots of expatriates and people visiting for work or school who can get it/already have it. You can also almost always sign up using a passport in person and sometimes online too.

karaterobot 5y ago

> “The point of a library is to preserve, and in order to preserve, a library must own,” Bustillos wrote. When I asked Potash about libraries and their growing digital budgets, he argued that “digital will always be better value,” but he acknowledged that, if current trends continue, “Yes, there is a challenge.” I'm of two minds about this, because on one hand seeing public libraries give up control and move toward a subscribed model feels wrong, shortsighted, lazy, and a bunch of other bad things. But on the other hand the primary purpose of a public library is not to preserve materials, it's to provide access to them. These electronic subscription services sure are a handy way to provide access to the most requested materials, so in the short term they're a great option. But they're a deal with the devil. It's not hard to predict the future here: libraries will become more and more dependent on the subscriptions, which will go up and up in price. Eventually the public library system becomes an inefficient way to redistribute taxes to publishers and distributors. That's different from today, when, due to the special status libraries have with respect to physical media, they're actually pretty inefficient from the publisher's perspective, but great from the reader's. The "challenge" will be to get those same protections in place for digital resources before it's too late.

Finnucane 5y ago
Yes, strictly speaking, an archive or a research library is more likely to be long-term storage than a public library (of course, the division is not clear-cut--and some public libraries have substantial archival research holdings). It's pretty routine for libraries to get rid of materials that aren't being used by anybody anymore. But it does take control over the process, the choice of what to keep and what to give up, away from the libraries to some extent.
sharkjacobs 5y ago
> the primary purpose of a public library is not to preserve materials, it's to provide access to them I worked in public libraries for years and almost nobody understands or believes how true this is. The main metric that libraries (the ones that I worked in) are assessed by, by the city council members who determine their funding, is "circulation" which is how many materials are loaned out to the public. We have fixed finite stack space and we get rid of as many books as we acquire each year. As a result, its in the libraries interest to buy way too many copies of all the latest best sellers and popular new releases, so that there will be plenty of copies available to borrowers right while the interest in them is high. Almost all of those will be weeded out less than a year later when demand drops off. The circulation numbers are so skewed that maintaining a comprehensive back catalogue is a sort of vanity project, not an imperative.

ryandvm 5y ago

Libby and the bizarre false scarcity model of e-book sharing is the kind of weird crap you end up when you try taking existing laws and paradigms and applying them to the digital landscape. There is absolutely no reason that a kid should have to wait in a queue to borrow an e-book because the 3 "copies" they have are already in use. If it's about making sure authors are compensated appropriately, then we need to restructure licensing fees so that libraries are paying reasonable per-use licensing fees. But to pretend that there are only a few copies of this book we can borrow is asinine.

selykg 5y ago
I think there's a bigger issue here. Currently the library buy's x copies of an ebook, which they can then distribute out to members. This is the model you're saying is bad. But the benefit here is that the expense of the book is predetermined and controllable. If you were to switch to a model where they're pay per use, fundamentally the amount is lower initially. But what happens when a book is incredibly popular and there aren't any limits on who can read that book. Now the library could be on the hook for a large bill that never would've happened had they had more control over the book. Sure, they could set a limit per book on the per use rules, but say they hit that limit in 6 months out of the year, now the book is just unavailable for the remaining 6 months? I feel like per use complicates things. I hate the current model, too. But I don't think all libraries are super well funded.
- pavel_lishin 5y ago
  I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that e-books should be "pay per use" when borrowed at the library, any more than you'd institute a "pay per use" model with regular books, DVDs, etc.
  - nkurz 5y ago
    I don't know if it disproves your "right mind" argument, but here's Overdrive's CEO explaining the advantages of their new "Cost per Circ" model whereby libraries pay a smaller cost for each checkout rather than purchasing items in advance: https://overdrivesteve.com/pursuing-the-holy-grail-of-library-ebook-models/ https://overdrivesteve.com/pursuing-the-holy-grail-of-librar...

OneEyedRobot 5y ago

What exactly is the point of a library in this case? Why doesn't this Overdrive company simply have a direct-to-consumer site with some kind of payment scheme? One thing that's going to have to change is the cost of ebooks. Amazon pricing is insane and I can't say that artificially scarce check-outs is a more logical solution. My main bet is that the IP enforcement apparatus gets stronger and stronger. Now is the time to grab everything you can from whatever source. youtube-dl, libgen, sci-hub, the-eye, even the currently legal things like gutenberg and archive.org...I'm working to go essentially offline on media sources.

SamuelAdams 5y ago
Anyone know of any way to download regular backups of books on LibGen?
- corebuffer 5y ago
  I don't know if I understood your question fully, but this is a guide on how to backup libgen: https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/comments/6rr71h/for_those_who_want_to_backup_libgen_just_in_case/ https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/comments/6rr71h/for_those_wh... You can adapt it to run partially only for the things you want, if that is the case. Hope it helps
TuringNYC 5y ago
>> What exactly is the point of a library in this case? Why doesn't this Overdrive company simply have a direct-to-consumer site with some kind of payment scheme? The direct to consumer model already exists. Amazon Kindle provides this very well on a per book level via Kindle [a la carte] (and also for large groups of books via Kindle Unlimited.) There are also numerous site-licensed services which give total access to books for a time period for pay -- I used it in grad school. I also subscribe to OReilly Safari and love it. The OverDrive/Libby model exists because it is free to the end user -- the public library is verifying you are a local resident and then using local tax dollars to fund the free service to residents.
- 5y ago

bjornlouser 5y ago

"To illustrate the economics of e-book lending, the N.Y.P.L. sent me its January, 2021, figures for “A Promised Land,” the memoir by Barack Obama that had been published a few months earlier by Penguin Random House. At that point, the library system had purchased three hundred and ten perpetual audiobook licenses at ninety-five dollars each, for a total of $29,450 ..." Amazon lists the audiobook at $40, Barnes&Noble sells an audio cd for $60. Paying a premium of over $40 dollars per license for distribution to end users seems crazy...

andylynch 5y ago
The price differentiation is because it's for distribution. If you think this is crazy (and I don't necessarily disagree) have a look at how stock exchanges' data licensing works.

ketcomp 5y ago

I just wrote a thread about why I love Libby. https://twitter.com/ketcomp/status/1431401637738917898 https://twitter.com/ketcomp/status/1431401637738917898 1. Low-effort setup for something that will be sparingly used 2. One design for libraries (at least across United States, Canada) - build once, sell forever 3. Skip-the-line loans & nudges as examples of leveraging technology to vastly improve UX. Someone pointed out the redesign and I think that actually has improved - you can also optionally turn on labels for those buttons on the bottom making it even less confusing. It admittedly was pretty confusing pre-redesign.

silicon2401 5y ago

Important tip for any libby/kindle readers: you can set up Libby to send ebooks to your kindle and read there. Libby is an amazing service and made it fun and easy for me to get back into reading with a kindle because I didn't have to drive to the library for checkout or returns, carry a stack of books around, be super picky with what I read I now just get ebooks on the high seas as Libby didn't have a lot of books I wanted to read, but if you care about doing things the approved way (so to speak) then Libby is definitely the way to go

charles_f 5y ago
Depends on your library though, some have it deactivated. Books I borrow from my work's library can be sent, books I borrow from my local library I can't
- samfromnz 5y ago
  It appears to be U.S-only too: https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/categories/kindle-books.htm?tocpath=Home%7CKindle%20Books%20(U.S.%20only)%7C_____0 https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/categories/kindle-books.htm?... Hopefully this changes in future, as I know many people find reading on a Kindle far more pleasant than a phone/tablet.
  - pkd 5y ago
    In Canada, Overdrive integrates with Kobo e-readers instead.
    - charles_f 5y ago
      Oh nice, good thing my kindle is reaching its end of life then

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago

Libby's usefulness skyrocketed during COVID times, when my library started adding the ability to check out digital magazines as well. Before quarantine, I used to go either to the library or to the Barnes and Noble and pull a couple magazines off the rack to thumb through while having some coffee. Most of those I can just read on my tablet now. You can even tag magazines with a "Notify Me" tag so that you'll get informed when the new monthly of the periodical is available.

gordon_freeman 5y ago
Yes the magazine feature "Notify me" is awesome as I can get reminders when new issues of my The Economist, New Yorker and Nat Geo magazines are available to borrow. I found that most of these magazines have unlimited availability so no waiting in line to borrow stuff there. This finally convinced me to not renew my Apple News+ subscription. Another tip: Some libraries such as LA and Berkeley even have NYTimes pass that you can use to read NYT online for a few days. Once the pass expires, you can just use same link to get another pass (usually the pass lasts for 24 to 72 hours).

fassssst 5y ago

I started using Libby a month ago and have probably read ten books since then. It’s awesome how well integrated it is with Kindle. Having multiple books checked out at once combined with the three week return time is very motivating for me to read instead of just scroll away hours on my phone. It’s addicting.

charles_f 5y ago
Integration with Kindle seems to be an option though. In BC libraries (out of Vancouver Public Library, which is its own overdrive subscription), it is disabled, which makes it much less attractive
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  It's only a US thing. Not a per library thing. Kobo has integration with Overdrive/Libby in a number of countries including Canada and you can even check out a book directly on he device. Android eReader are also a thing. I use a couple Boox devices and just run Libby directly on them.

charles_f 5y ago

> During the past decade, publishers and booksellers have consolidated at a rapid pace > At the beginning, we were really trying to replicate what happens on the print-book side > In 2011, HarperCollins introduced a new lending model that was capped at twenty-six checkouts, after which a library would need to purchase the book again. Publishers soon introduced other variations, from two-year licenses to copies that multiple readers could use at one time, which boosted their revenue [...] Sums it up.

jrm4 5y ago

My lord, this is all stupid as hell. Here we are, sitting in a world where every human being could possess every book they could ever want to read, forever, in a $30 device. And instead, here we are fully nodding our heads in agreement with this completely nonsensical and artificial "borrowing" metaphor. It's utterly ridiculous. Before anyone goes off on how will writers get paid, please have some imagination. I get books from the library and buy them when they're good. We also have Netflix etc etc. There has got to be a better way.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
Agree completely; we are perpetuating a system where rent collection is the norm, where IP "piracy" is fabricated and conflated, and novel creation is disincented. Would love to see how many sharky middlemen are taking their cut from this type of Overdrive system. Bet it is full of exploitation, and the authors are seeing very little from the wealth transfer anyways.
josho 5y ago
Our economic system is based on how to distribute scarce resources. We are applying this way of thinking to non-scarce resources. The consequence is previously unimaginable scale and for the owners/gatekeepers of these resources unimaginable wealth. You are right, we absolutely have to figure out a better way.
- space_fountain 5y ago
  IP has never been a scare resource in one way of thinking (it's always been way cheaper to copy than pay the right holder), but we recognize that we need to incentive the creation of new IP
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
boplicity 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

Copyright on books should expire after 20 years. And frankly, are any authors really making useful amounts of money off of books they wrote 20 years ago?

nfriedly 5y ago
Aren't the majority of book copyrights owned by publishers? All the same, I'd expect the answer to your question is "no". I think authors usually make most of their income from the advance before the book is even written. I'm sure they make some income from royalties, for at least some books, but it probably does drop off by the 20 year mark for most books.
- dangoor 5y ago
  Generally, the copyright is owned by the author but the contract with the publisher gives them so many exclusive rights that they effectively own the work.
WalterBright 5y ago
Another solution is to simply require registration. Or a renewal after 20 years. I.e. the copyright holder has to proactively do something to extend it.
TylerE 5y ago
> are any authors really making useful amounts of money off of books they wrote 20 years ago? Yes? Game Of Thrones is 25 years old.
- CubsFan1060 5y ago
  Foundation. Wheel of time. Lord of the rings. Marvel movies. James Bond. You’re right, lots of other media that drives book sales. 7 habits, win friends and influence people. There’s a decent amount of examples.

nfriedly 5y ago

I feel like misaligned incentives are the real problem here - what if libraries banded together and paid authors directly for books? Or maybe we need a publisher more like PBS or BBC with more of a public interest perspective?

sayhar 5y ago

I'm just here as a fan of Open Library[1]. More people should know about it. [1] https://openlibrary.org/ https://openlibrary.org/

dredmorbius 5y ago

One of the arguments advanced in favour of copyright-based compensation is that: 1. Authors must be paid. (Agreed.) 2. That payment must be based on the quantity of work produced and sold. (Disagreed.) Wage income ultimately provides for both 1) the living costs of workers and their families as well as 2) opportunity risks and costs of production. (Adam Smith's 240+ year old five-factor analysis of components of wage prices remains excellent, cogent, and relevant: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_10 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_...) Under FDR's New Deal, the Federal Writers Project directly hired and supported numerous American writers, many of whom went on to become classics of the country's literary canon, among them Zora Neale Hurston, Kenneth Rexroth and John Cheever, Saul Bellow, Studs Terkel, Nelson Algren and Richard Wright. Contrast with Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens, who found himself blacklisted and unemployable in San Francisco, with a nickel and a revolver to his name. The nickel for if he was unable to come up with money, the revolver for when he had to spend the nickel. Even after achieving literary success, Clemens struggled with money troubles for his entire life, succeeding largely on the support of his father-in-law. An LA Times article on the FWP: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-05-06/post-coronavirus-federal-writers-project https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-...

mark_l_watson 5y ago

Libby is great - lots of audiobooks and ebooks from my local library. The UE may not be as polished as Audible and Kindle, but still good at what is needed to find books, check them out, and consume them.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/Ha3VQ https://archive.is/Ha3VQ

throwaway088 5y ago

Are there any opensource apps that I can connect to San Jose public library? I have some features in mind, like sending a notification asking me to read a certain page at certain time of the day. When I click the link, it should take me to the next open page. Surprisingly no such apps exist so far

teeray 5y ago

I know it’s a silly artificial thing, but I like the time limits on borrowing. It becomes a commitment and the deadline helps me read tons of books in a year.

smoldesu 5y ago

This is the big issue with SaaS like this, particularly when doing business B2C. Whenever you're providing marginal utility at markup, there will always be a degree of 'bullshit factor' determining how pointless your provision is. If you provide a good service, that factor will be inconsequential, but in the business of e-books it's the elephant in the room. Copying is practically free these days, we should be using that to empower people instead of using it for debilitating them.

ssmmww 5y ago

Possibly a dumb question, but...is there any good economic (vs legal, cultural, etc) reason why a Spotify-style "streaming service" for books wouldn't work? That is, you pay an affordable monthly subscription fee in exchange for completely unfettered access to almost every published book, and authors are compensated per book/page/line read, or something like that.

dhosek 5y ago

I've stashed the article to read later, so maybe they discuss this (but I've seen no indication from the comments). There are two¹ different models for ebook lending at libraries. With Libby/MediaOnDemand, the library purchases an ebook which will have different limitations based on the publisher. For some it's a fixed time frame, for some a fixed number of checkouts, for some it's unlimited. This is meant to be somewhat equivalent to the purchasing process for books and other physical media where it's expected that the book will have a fixed lifetime after which it is no longer lendable.² The price paid, again depends on the publisher, but is generally more than the consumer price for the book.³ The other model is employed by Hoopla. With their catalog, everything is available for unlimited lending with no waiting (although patrons are usually limited to a fixed number of borrows per month). In this instance, the library pays a fee for each borrow, usually around a dollar, but it can vary depending on the media type and publisher. Ooh, I just remembered a third model, although I don't know if any of the library ebook services employ it. Kanopy, which offers streaming video services for libraries works on a system where when a patron decides to watch something, if someone else at the library has already watched it, it's free, if they haven't then the library is charged for a full-price purchase of the media (I read somewhere that this is in the $80–100 range). The big drawbacks here are that (a) the cost will be unpredictable and (2) the library will feel tied to the service thanks to sunk costs. We're still in the early days of figuring out how to make digital media work and balance the needs of libraries and publishers. I like the convenience of being able to borrow anything without waiting with Hoopla although their ereader kind of sucks, and because of the economics, if my library has a book in both Libby and Hoopla, I usually prefer to do the Libby borrow since that money's already spent (plus their reader is better), but it's enough of a toss-up that if the Libby copy is checked out, I'll go with the Hoopla one. ——— 1. At least two. But these are the ones I'm most familiar with. 2. If you ever visit the picture book section of your local public library you will see this limited lifetime exhibited in dramatic fashion. 3. For legal reasons, your library does not purchase it's paper books, DVDs, CDs, etc. at the corner bookstore or Amazon, but through special purchasing agreements that, again, depending on the publisher, will result in the publisher being paid more than they might otherwise get. My first experience of this was when I was publishing a magazine. Library subscriptions almost always came through a service which paid me the full annual subscription price, and then turned around and charged an additional fee to the library. I believe that something similar happens with books where the library pays the service cover price plus X and the publisher receives the full cover price, but I'm willing to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable than me spouting off in a footnote.

mcguire 5y ago

Libby and digital libraries are great, when they have what you want to read. Terrence Wise, Medieval Warfare (1973)? Don't be silly. (Picked it up at a used book store, weirdly.) John Guilmartin, Gunpowder & Galleys: Changing Technology & Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the 16th Century (2003)? (Managed to order it for a reasonable price from Amazon UK.) Nope. Max Hastings, Operation Pedestal (2020)? None of the library systems I have access to have it. (Audible. Really good, so far.) All of the recent, popular fiction? Sure, although you may have to wait several months to get it. I get that the library systems are limited by their budgets and have to prioritize what the majority of their patrons want. But back in the depths of last year, everyone was saying, "You can get all the books you want digitally!" No, no you can't.

orsenthil 5y ago

I was interested in knowing how much commission does libby take for the service it offers? The article doesn't give the details on "big business" that I was looking for. The only related information was - "The details of the sale were not made public, but Rakuten reported a profit of “about $365.6 million.”" But Rakuten is a big company with multiple products. And 365 Million is "Not Big Profit" - for the service lending Millions of ebooks to millions of customers for over a year. I was curious to know, how much libraries pay per ebook. This might have been set prior to libby /overdrive becoming popular. How much commission does libby take for the service it offers? I am also assuming that most of the US libraries are funded by state tax dollars, through which they buy books, pay their staff and now pay libby.